In posting the video below, Ace asks, “Who decides in America? The people, as the books claim? Or the elite, as common practice seems to have it?”

Caddell gets at the hubris of the Obama Democrats, an arrogance manifest since the first days of the Administration when the president answered Republican objections about the size of the “stimulus,” with a self-righteous, “I won,” as if his victory were entirely personal, overriding the pledges he made in the campaign in order to win the election.

The Democratic pollster points out some pretty stunning poll numbers which show just out of touch the Administration is with the American people. Only 39% of Americans think that Obama’s policies “saved the country from the brink.” Just saying “I won” is not enough to sell your policies to the American people.

“Obama” Victor Davis Hanson writes, “thought his popularity and charm could win the public over to his unpopular agenda; now he worries that his own growing unpopularity and lack of charm may make any agenda unpalatable.” And the mainstream media seem complicit in the Administration attempts to downplay or ignore evidence that the American people don’t like its policies. As Fred Thompson put it:

The ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts all mentioned President Obama’s birthday, but none mentioned Missouri’s vote against Obamacare.

Which is sorta like complimenting a guy’s shoes while neglecting to mention that he forgot to wear pants.

And yet, despite the media’s best efforts, the American people, in increasing numbers, recognize how Obama’s initiatives are at odds with their interests. In this clip (@2:40), Caddell points out that 68% of Americans believe the government is operating without the “consent of the governed.” As a result, he believes the situation in America is “pre-revolutionary.” Sounds like a notion I heard somewhat recently. Now, where was that? Ah, yes, right here!

UPDATE:  In a similar vein, Peter Wehner offers:

It turns out these liberals really are elitist, and they really do look down their noses at a citizenry they consider benighted, childish, and bigoted. And they honestly believe that in times of difficulty, ordinary Americans cling to their Bibles, their guns, their antipathy toward immigrants and those who aren’t like them — and Glenn Beck.

This analysis is not only wrong; it’s politically stupid. The public doesn’t much like being viewed in such condescending and paternalistic terms. But better they know about it than not.

Via Ed Driscoll via Instapundit.

A reader alerted me to a Washington Post story about a response Sharron Angle gave to a questionnaire from a social conservative organization. The Nevada Republican U.S. Senate nominee answered “Yes” to this question:

In reference to question 35A, Intel Corporation supports “equal rights for gays” and offers benefits to “partners” of homosexual employees. Would you refuse funds from this corporate PAC?

First, I’m just wondering if the MSM reporters are rooting around in the candidate questionnaires of Democratic candidates looking for extreme answers. Second, this is a pretty stunning answer. Now, I doubt the candidate herself filled out the form, probably delegated it to some campaign flunky.  (Note how Democrats use this excuse all the time when Republicans discover potentially damaging answers on their questionnaires.)

That said, she did sign off on it.  But does she mean it?   Given how many corporations offer benefits to same-sex partners of their employees, it’s probably safe to say that several may have already donated to her campaign.  Has her campaign been refusing checks from such corporations?

Her campaign should clarify that the response was just an error made by an overzealous staffer.  If it doesn’t, this response could hurt her with a lot of Americans in the middle who are neither pro-gay nor anti-gay, but who wonder at a candidate who objects overmuch to a private corporation, without influence from government, determining, on its own, the best way to treat its gay employees.

In her campaign, Ms. Angle has done a good job rallying the Tea Party folk who believe the government is doing too much and who trust the private sector to make the right choices.  Her answer to this question suggests she scorns private corporations who make certain decisions in setting corporate policy.

She would help her campaign if she would say as much and change the answer to the question.  If not she risks ceding the election to a politician, increasingly unpopular in his own state and is out of touch with his constituents on nearly every issue.

Over at Commentary Contentions, Peter Wehner references House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “pathetic and pitiful” response “to the dismal new unemployment numbers”.   Always on the attack, Ms. Nancy would rather blame Republicans than accept the responsibility for her own party’s failures:

Today’s report shows our teachers, police officers, firefighters, and nurses are still feeling the worst of the Bush recession — while Republican leaders demean them as ‘special interests’ and try to block legislation that will grow our economy,

Bush recession?  Huh?  That good man has been out of office for 18 months, with Ms. Pelosi’s party has having since held all the levers of power in our nation’s capitol.

So, if she’s going to blame the current recession on the immediate past Administration, it’s only fair to also blame the immediate past Congress, given that the legislature has the power to enact laws to help deal with our economic woes — and has the power of the purse.  So, let’s see, the 111th is the current Congress, so the previous Congress must have been the 110th.  Let’s see who was Speaker then.

Googling 110th Congress.  Why a Ms. Nancy Pelosi was speaker of that Congress!  Omigosh, the very same Nancy who’s blaming all our nation’s problems on that evil Republican Bush.  That Congress first met on January 3, 2007, nearly a full year before the recession began (in December 2007).

So, there you have it, by Ms. Nancy’s logic, she gets her name on the current recession.  If W is responsible for the current recession, then she is too.  My friends, we’re in the 33rd month of the Bush-Pelosi recession.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Kurt offers:

Or the Bush-Pelosi-Reid recession as we might say here in Nevada. I think we ought to start comparing the so-called Bush deficits (which run from fiscal 2001 through fiscal 2007) with the Reid and Pelosi deficits (which begin in fiscal 2008). The enormity of the Reid and Pelosi deficits dwarfs the previous years.

He’s got a point.  From now on, when Democrats call it the Bush recession, we’ll remind them that their party had controlled Congress for nearly a full year when the economy started going south.

Linking some posts in the blogosphere (including Bruce’s) on Ann Coulter’s coming gathering with Homocons, Dan Riehl observes, “If the only happy homosexual is a progressive homosexual, how come they’re the ones bitching all the time? So much for the whole tolerance meme.”

I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.  And probably for a longer time than Dan has.

Why do they get their panties all in a bundle when they merely learn of the existence of gay people who offer opinions at odds with the orthodoxy?  Why do all too many (but fortunately not all!) self-anointed “progressive” gays respond to the right-wing counterparts not with inquiry and arguments but instead with insults and animosity?

Inquiring minds want to know.